Only This, and Nothing More
by darkmaster3
Summary: Wolverine's story, from shortly before the end of X-Men up to X2. What really happened fifteen years ago, and what will he find when he goes looking?
1. Dreams

Disclaimer: Nope, don't own the X-Men in any way, shape or form. 

Prologue 1: Dreams 

"You running again?"

-Rogue, _X-Men_

"If you knew anything about your past, what kind of person you were…You were an animal then, you're an animal now. I just gave you claws."

-General Stryker, _X2_

Fifteen years ago

Logan Brantford contemplated his empty bottle. He'd already had a lot of beer tonight, but clearly it wasn't enough. Not if he was still obsessing over this. Hell, not if he was still thinking at all. He waved the bartender over for another.

The bartender looked him over skeptically. "Haven't you had enough, buddy?" he asked.

Logan sighed. "Just give me another one, okay?" he said. The bartender shrugged and brought Logan a fresh beer, which he set to work on. If he was going to go through with this, he was going to need all the courage he could get.

If. Still if. He still wasn't sure why he'd signed up for this damn thing in the first place. It sounded crazier the more he thought about it. Some kind of supersoldier experiment. What the hell had he been thinking?

Come to think of it, he wasn't too sure about those people he'd talked to, either—that Stryker guy. He'd been racking his brains and couldn't figure out how they could have found him. He thought he'd covered his tracks pretty well the last time. Apparently he hadn't, though. And to think that he always used to be the one who nobody paid any attention to. Not his classmates, his teachers, not girls. He was never even enough of a threat to get picked on by anybody. He'd figured getting onto that junior hockey team was about the best thing that would ever happen to him. How was he supposed to know that his knee injury in that game against Calgary would heal completely in just a couple of hours?

It had been as much of a shock to him as it had been to anyone else, and it had been even more of a shock when he showed up for practice the next day and the coach pulled him aside and told him that they wouldn't be needing him anymore. And here he would've thought having a player who couldn't be injured was a good thing. But apparently there were rules, and he would no longer be needed on the team. The details didn't matter. He just left, like everyone seemed to want him to, and didn't look back.

He'd left without really knowing what he was going to do, and it showed. He drifted for years, sometimes leaving for no reason at all. Most of the time he didn't have so much choice in the matter. Something would happen—something always happened. There was that mine out in Saskatchewan, the one where he dug out the five-foot cave-in by himself in barely an hour. And to think that in the Soviet Union he would have been a hero. Not here. First the whispers started, like always. Then the funny looks, and then he was told they didn't need him anymore. He could take a hint. He always could. Most of the time he didn't need to be asked; he could tell where he wasn't welcome. 

Logan got tired of it after a while, always moving, going so far east that he had to learn French and then back again. But he could never stay. Eventually he'd joined the army, figuring they take anyone. He'd even managed to get past the physical exam. But eventually even they didn't want him. Not even the army would take a freak. Their loss, he kept telling himself. Fortunately his severance pay had held out a while, and then he'd met this Stryker guy.

Stryker. Not really a subtle name, but that was okay. Logan had had enough of subtle people. After all, he wasn't too subtle himself. What he wondered was, could this guy really help him? Logan still wasn't too clear on just what this experiment would be, and that was starting to bother him. They'd said something about "physical enhancements". He'd figured that meant some kind of further genetic enhancements, maybe drugs or something. Well, it didn't really matter. He'd take whatever he could get. What did he have to lose? He was already a freak. He could take being eve more of a freak if it meant nobody would mess with him, if he could fight back.

So here he was, waiting for them to pick him up—Stryker hadn't really been clear on who would show up, either, come to think of it—and getting as drunk as he could, trying not to think about what he had gotten himself into.

He'd made it through a full six-pack of Molson before they came. He could tell as soon as they walked in the door. It had to be them. Who else would wear camouflage into a bar? Sure enough, they nodded to him, and he shoved some money at the bartender and got up to follow them. He was annoyed when they grabbed him and shoved him into the truck outside. Wasn't he coming voluntarily? Ingrates. He glared at them as he slumped in the back, rubbing at his wrists, pretending they'd hurt him.

He didn't know where they took him, but it was a long way from Edmonton. His muscles were stiff by the time they hustled him out of the truck in the middle of the night, down a metal tunnel into some kind of control room. He looked around at all the computer displays. Something about temperature—what the hell was that for? Then he heard someone walk into the room behind him, and turned to see General Stryker. Good. Maybe now he'd figure out what was going on.

Stryker just stood there with a smile on his face, like Logan had brought him a present. It made him uncomfortable. "What happens now?" he asked. 

Stryker kept smiling at him in that creepy way. "Don't worry," he said. "It's all ready. Everything should go fine."

Logan wasn't reassured. "That's not an answer."

Stryker smiled at him. "Did I promise you any answers?"

This was making Logan's head hurt already. "Look, just tell me what's going on here," he snapped.

Stryker shook his head. "That would ruin the surprise now, wouldn't it?" he said.

Logan had expected this kind of thing. He'd dealt with this sort of people before. But that didn't mean he had to like it. "What kind of operation is this?" he asked, not really expecting an answer.

"Come on, Logan, it's time to get you ready," Stryker told him in response, and one of the army goons standing around grabbed him and led him in that ever-so-subtle way out of the room and deeper into the complex.

These were areas that Logan had never been in before. Here, as opposed to the meeting room he'd been taken to the other times, there was nothing but iron and concrete and wiring. He supposed that they must be out by the dam operation area, but he couldn't tell. The halls were lined with doors every hundred feet or so, as far as he could figure. They were all iron, heavy looking, with latches like prison doors.

He was pretty sure he could figure out his way back through the maze of hallways for a while, but eventually he wasn't so sure. Everything started to blur together. He wasn't even sure how much time had passed. Then the guards stopped and opened one of the iron doors. "We're here," one of them grunted. 

Logan stepped inside. It was like a cavern, with more cement, pipes, and some kind of equipment. It almost looked medical, but not quite. Logan had seen enough medical equipment in his life to know. And there, next to that—tank—was a container of some kind of bubbling silver liquid. No, not bubbling—boiling. Shit, what had he gotten himself into? 

"We'll need to start with a few tests, of course. Nothing much, just some x-rays, that sort of thing." 

Logan's head snapped around to see the doctor standing in the corner. X-rays and medical tests. Well, that was about what he'd expected. Fair enough. It was just that he couldn't take his eyes off of that bubbling liquid.

There were some standard tests—x-rays, various MRIs and CAT scans, blood pressure and pulse. He even did the running-on-a-treadmill-with-electrodes thing. Apparently everything was going well, because the doctor just kept nodding and writing things down, with a little smile almost as creepy as Stryker's. 

Then came the inevitable. Logan had just gotten off the treadmill and was wiping off sweat and that conductive goo they'd smeared on for the electrodes when the still-unnamed doctor walked up to him and said what Logan had been half-dreading the whole time—"That's very good. Next we need to check on your abilities."

"My abilities?" Logan asked, trying to stall.

"Yes. We need to do a few small tests on the extent of your healing abilities."

He'd expected this, but it still didn't sound good. Logan just nodded and sat in the chair the doctor led him to. The idea sounded even worse when he saw the doctor pull out a straight razor and a hammer. It'll only hurt for a little bit, he told himself. Just for a minute. It'll sting, that's all. Then his shoulder exploded.

He stood up and grabbed at the doctor, yelling, "Listen, buddy, what the hell you think you're doing?"

The doctor just laughed. "It should be almost healed already, right? Just some soft tissue damage." He was right, of course, but that didn't make Logan feel any better. Mentally, at least.

Next the doctor cut Logan's forearm to see how fast the cut would heal. This time he grinned at the results. Logan wasn't sure if he liked that. He definitely didn't like the next test. The doctor kept cutting the back of his hand in the same place, between the knuckles. Why would they want to know the effect of repeated cuts? It stung like hell. He also thought it was strange that they didn't want to test his bones, just soft tissue healing. Logan asked what they needed to know all this for, but the doctor just kept writing things down. There was a big pile of paper now. Logan was getting tired. He'd almost fallen asleep in his chair when the doctor glanced over at him and said, "Just one more and we'll let you get to bed, okay?"

"What's that?" Logan asked, fully awake now.

"Well," the doctor drawled, "we'd like to check on how your system will react to just a few more things."

"What kind of things?"

The doctor didn't answer. He stood with his back turned, fiddling with something—Logan couldn't see.

"What's going on here, damn it?"

The doctor turned to him now. "Oh, you'll find out soon enough, Mr. Brantford. Just sit tight." Then Logan saw the syringe. 

He didn't feel anything at first, just the prick. Then there was…something. He felt his blood rushing through him, his heart pounding, that stuff—whatever it was spreading. Then the tingling started, like electricity running through his blood. He had to stop himself from rubbing his arm reflexively to try and get rid of it. The burning subsided after a few minutes, and he turned to the doctor, who was ignoring him again, taking more notes. He turned back to Logan, as an afterthought, and said distractedly, "Oh, Smith and Jones will take you to your room for tonight." On cue, the two army guards who had been dragging Logan around the entire time grabbed his arms again and took him through the iron door across the hall from the lab.

It wasn't much, but there was a toilet, sink and bed with something resembling a mattress, so it would do. The goons left, and Logan was alone with his thoughts again.

He was tired, but he just couldn't sleep. He couldn't figure out what these people were up to. Sure, he hadn't expected this to be especially legal or health promoting, but there was something very not right about this. That room he'd been in looked even more like a mad scientist's lab than he'd thought it would. Well, he could handle mad scientists. 

That night his dreams began with the hockey game. They usually did. Tonight, though, it happened differently. Tonight, he stood right back up as if nothing had happened. That was when it started. Not subtly, like in real life, like usual. There was the whispering, and the muttering, growing to a roar. Then they started throwing things at him as he stood there, unable to move. Then came the rocks. It was then that he woke up. He sat in bed for the rest of the night, waiting for someone to come, thinking. It wasn't for a couple of hours that it occurred to him to wonder why he hurt from the rocks.

He felt stiff, like he'd barely slept at all, which he supposed was probably true, not that he had a clock in here. He felt funny, on edge. That electricity was back in his blood. He wondered what they'd done to him already, and if he would ever find out. It must have been another couple of hours before there was a pounding on the door, and his goons walked in to drag him back to the lab. Logan thought about asking them for a change of clothes, or at least underwear, but decided not to waste his breath. 

They took him back to the same lab, with the same doctor waiting in the corner. They started right away, with the two goons stripping him to his underwear. He tried to protest, but they had a good fifty pounds on him, all muscle. They slapped him onto a big table face up, where the doctor walked up to him and started marking up his arms and legs. Logan supposed this was for the enhancements they were supposed to give him, but the doctor wouldn't answer when he asked. The doctor wasn't telling him anything. He looked around the room for clues. There were the x-rays they'd taken earlier. He could see a label on one of them from where he was. There was no name, just a number and a label: "Wolverine".

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

Well, here goes. Don't worry, I'll get to the real story soon, just one more prologue. I do know this is completely inconsistent with anything from the comic books or cartoons, and it probably won't be particularly consistent with the movies either, but I wanted to tell it this way. So enjoy, and let me know what you think!

The story title comes from Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven".


	2. Nightmares

Disclaimer: All I own of the X-Men is a few comic books and a DVD.

Prologue 2: Nightmares 

            Alarm clock.  Morning.  Damn.  I roll over to shut it off.  Six AM.  Damn, why am I up this early?  Wait a minute—where am I?  

            I look around.  I'm in a hotel room that's probably seen better days.  There are clothes hung over a chair, but I see nothing else.  I get out of bed to investigate and find nothing in the dresser, nothing in the bathroom.  Odd.  Wherever I am, I seem to be traveling pretty light.  

            I open the curtains and look out the window.  Looks like summer.  I'm in a good-sized city, probably downtown from the looks of it.  It seems familiar, but I can't figure out why, or where it is.  Shit.  

            And as I wonder where I am and why I would be there, I realize something else: I'm not sure who I am.  Sure, my reflection in the mirror seems familiar, but I can't come up with a name, or a job, or a family, or anything.  Wherever I am, I must be starting over.  Unless I'm just still groggy from waking up so damn early, and it's all going to come back to me any minute now.

            Nope.  Damn.  A nice hot shower and still not a clue.  Maybe I was just too distracted by how crappy the hotel soap is.  At least now I know I'm in a Holiday Inn.  That's a step.  

            I watch TV for a while, and everything seems familiar enough, but there's still nothing specific.  I do know that I'm in Detroit, which is one more step.  I decide it's late enough in the morning to head out and see if I can find anything out from the rest of the world.

            After reading the paper I'm up on my current events but still don't know who I am.  This is getting pretty fucking unnerving.  And I'm hungry.  Damn, why haven't I eaten yet?  Am I that stupid?  Maybe I just forgot my life.  Sheesh.  No, wait—the square root of 49 is 7, and the capital of Portugal is Lisbon.  Okay, not stupid.  But I'm still hungry.  So I go to the coffee shop down the street and get a bagel.  Being full makes me feel a little better.  I seem to have cash on me—quite a bit, actually.  Whoever I am, I don't seem to be doing to badly, Holiday Inn or not.  But thinking of money makes me realize it'll run out sooner or later, and I start to think about getting a job.

            I'm not sure what I'm good at, so I decide to walk around and see what I can find.  Soon enough I find a warehouse, and that feels right, so I walk inside.  

            Some security guard walks up to me with a sneer and asks if I need anything.  I tell him sure, I need a job, and he points me to the foreman's office.  I find the foreman bent over paperwork.  He tells me I can start driving a forklift tomorrow.  It sounds good to me.  I walk off and wonder what I'm going to do until tomorrow.  Tomorrow.  Ha.  I wonder if I'll remember any of this tomorrow.  Maybe it'll disappear into the same emptiness that the rest of my life did.  Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and it'll all come back.  Anything's possible, right?

            As I step out of the office, the foreman calls me back.  "Hey, buddy, you forgot something."

            He doesn't know the half of it.  "What?"

            "What's your name?"

            Shit.  I reach into the back of my brain, and then it comes to me, floating out from behind the clouds, a shimmer of something.

            "Logan.  My name is Logan."

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

Next chapter will be in the present, I promise, and it'll be longer.  Sorry if this was too choppy—I'm not used to present tense narration, but it made sense for this part.  I hope it worked.  So enjoy, and I'll try to get some of the *real* story up pretty soon.  


	3. Running Again

Chapter One - Running (Again)  
  
And it's true I must be going, but I swear I won't be long...  
  
-Great Big Sea  
  
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.  
  
But I have promises to keep,  
  
And miles to go before I sleep,  
  
And miles to go before I sleep.  
  
-Robert Frost  
  
And he carries the reminders  
  
Of every glove that laid him down  
  
And cut him till he cried out   
  
In his anger and his shame  
  
"I am leaving, I am leaving"  
  
But the fighter still remains  
  
-Paul Simon  
  
The school was a nice place, Logan thought as he paced through the halls, really it was. He could feel comfortable here. Hell, he could wander the halls at night and nobody cared. He passed by a bedroom door and caught a whiff of soap. Irish Spring. And there, down the hall, that was that girl's favorite perfume...what was her name? Oh well. Nothing suspicious or unfamiliar in the air. It was almost creepy. Still, he felt better out here, on patrol, than tucked away in his room like the little boy he must surely have once been.  
  
  
  
He kept going down the hall, smiling as he picked up everyone's scent and sound in turn. That John kid was snoring again. He wondered how the guy's roommate put up with it.  
  
On and on past the kitchen, which was empty but still held an aura from dinner. Pork chops. Logan liked pork chops, though the ones they made here were a bit chewy and a bit bland for his taste.   
  
He started walking faster, trying to get past the shadows, trying not to think about the dreams that had woken him up again. Now that he was awake, of course, there was no way he'd be getting back to sleep anyway. That feeling again-that electricity, acid in his blood. He started flexing his fingers, walking faster. He'd go to the gym. That would keep him from exploding. That was when he heard the familiar voice in his head.  
  
Logan...I need to see you.  
  
Now?  
  
You had other plans?  
  
Logan sighed and turned around. The gym could wait, he supposed.  
  
When he got to the professor's office, the lights were off, as usual. As usual, Logan didn't turn them on. He wasn't about to give in yet. And there was the professor, sitting and waiting. Logan folded his arms and leaned against the doorway, waiting also. It took Xavier almost five minutes to turn around and look him in the eyes. Logan smiled triumphantly.  
  
"You must be wondering why I asked you here," Xavier began.  
  
Logan just raised his eyebrows.  
  
"I've been checking into some things for you," Charles said. "I asked some of my contacts about a place called Alkali Lake, a military installation, up by where we first ran into you. It took a lot of persuasiveness on my part to do this, you understand. This is not exactly a well-publicized area."  
  
"Why? What do they do there?" Logan asked.  
  
"Well, there are a number of projects I've heard rumors about. One of them involves mutants. I don't know much more than that. They've been operational since at least the early 1950s, in connection with Project Paper Clip and some of the other less savory operations after the war. Mostly the base seems to come up in connection with biological warfare research over the next ten years. I haven't found any information after 1970, except that it was officially decommissioned in 1974. After that, nothing traceable. That's all I have right now, but it should be a good place for you to start."  
  
Logan nodded. "Okay. I appreciate all this."  
  
Xavier just smiled. "Thank me once you've been there, Logan."  
  
"Is that it?"  
  
Xavier eyed him in that way Logan had never gotten used to, and said, "Well, there is just one other thing."  
  
"What?" Logan asked.  
  
"Have you been enjoying your time teaching here?" Xavier asked.  
  
"Sure, it's been all right," Logan said. "Why?"  
  
"You just seem a bit distracted lately, a bit restless."  
  
Logan thought for a minute. "Yeah, just a little restless. I've always been like that."  
  
"How long do you typically stay in one place before leaving?"   
  
"A couple of months." Logan paused again to think. "I think it's been about four now. Since Liberty Island."  
  
"So it has," Xavier agreed. "You'll want to be getting along to Alkali Lake, then."  
  
Logan sighed. "Yeah. It just feels worse than the other times."  
  
Xavier smiled. "You'll still have a place here if you choose to return for it, if that's what's worrying you."  
  
"I've heard that before."  
  
"Most of us have," Xavier said. "Here we mean it."  
  
"It takes some getting used to," Logan said.  
  
Xavier nodded. "It does. But we'll be here once you're ready."  
  
"All of you? Even if I leave?"  
  
"It's not the leaving, Logan," Xavier said. "It's how you do it."  
  
Logan thought about that, making his way back through the dark corridors. He'd always found that to be true. Usually it was best to leave quietly, without making much trouble. Usually, by the time he left someplace he'd made enough trouble already. No doubt that was true here too. He didn't look forward to having to face Scotty and tell him, tell all of them, he couldn't stay. Couldn't be an X-Man. It was all he could do to fight for himself without taking on the whole world. Besides, he figured they'd be just as relieved as everyone else he'd left, and probably not just Scott. It was time he left before he made himself unwelcome here too. Somehow, he couldn't bear the waiting this time, the inevitable disgrace. Best to leave while he wasn't really letting them down yet.  
  
Somehow, though, when he went to pack the next day, it occurred to him to do his own checking up on this Alkali Lake. He may not have sources, he figured, but he had his Internet connection. There was a lot more information out there than the average person might have thought. He found three more bases mentioned in connection with Alkali Lake, two of them from the same biological warfare program, all closed. He also came across a base in the same area as Alkali Lake that didn't seem to be connected to it, but might be worth checking out anyway. At least it was still officially in operation. No matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find out anything about what this program was supposed to have done. He'd done everything he could from here. By this time it had been several days since his little talk with Charles. Logan hadn't said anything to anyone about his plans, and he had no intention to. He finally packed up his things and was slipping through the hall when he saw her.  
  
Rogue- Marie- was hanging out in one of the rec rooms, playing foosball with some of the other kids. He was glad. She deserved better than the life she'd been living when they met. This was more what she was meant for, with no other worries than the boys in her class. He turned to g, but by then she'd seen him, and when she came running over, he was trapped.   
  
  
  
"You running again?" she asked him, serious, hurt, and it cut him more than anything else she could have said. Of course I am, he thought. What else could I do? You'll get over it, he wanted to tell here, but the words stuck in his throat. All he could do was answer her.  
  
"Not really. I have some things to take care of up north," he told her. It wasn't a lie, after all. He owed this to himself. But maybe, he realized as he looked her in the eye, he owed her too. After all, they'd brought each other here. When she said she didn't want him to go, he knew he owed her. So he gave her the dog tags. It would be something for her-not much, but it would help. And it would keep him from letting her down. He couldn't just run off now, he reminded himself; he had kids to take care of. So he walked out the door, almost like he'd planned. And when he got back, they would be waiting for him.  
  
To be continued...  
  
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  
  
I strike again! Sorry I took so long to update; for those of you still reading this, thank you for your loyalty. I know, I'm a horrible updater, but between school and my other story, and being a lazy ass when I'm not in school, plus my taking a while to figure out where I'm going with this story, it just doesn't happen. I hope this has been worth the wait. I've got something of a plot figured out now. I'm afraid there won't be a whole lot happening, mostly a sort of detective story, but I hope y'all like it anyway.  
  
Oh, and sorry if the quotes at the beginning seem overly pretentious. They seemed right. 


End file.
